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Navy Retiree Drives Mobile Memorial to 9/11 Attack Sites

By Gerry J. GilmoreAmerican Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2006  Bruce Gorman is driven, literally, in demonstrating his belief that Americans should close ranks against terrorism and never forget the people who were killed during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Gorman retired from the Navy in January as a petty officer first class with 20 years’ service. Since then, the 47-year-old former religious program specialist has poured time, energy and money into a 36-foot-long International passenger bus, turning it into a mobile memorial featuring photos of the nearly 3,000 victims killed in the attacks at New York City, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pa.

The northern-Florida resident said he wants to heighten Americans’ “awareness that we really are at war with some fanatical groups in the world, and we have to stand by one another, support each another.”

Gorman drove his bus from Florida to the Pentagon to support the memory of the people killed in the 9/11 attacks. He plans to continue on to Shanksville, Pa., and then drive to New York City’s “ground-zero” site in time to observe the city’s Sept. 11 memorial events.

Gorman arrived at the Pentagon’s north parking area Sept. 2 and plans to depart for Shanksville early Sept. 5. His bus is covered, inside and outside, with 2,876 plastic-laminated black-and-white photos of 9/11 victims. In total, 2,996 people died in the 9/11 attacks, excluding the 19 hijackers. Four hijacked U.S. airliners were involved in the attacks.

“I would just do search engines on the Internet to come up with the photos,” Gorman explained, noting he paid $6,000 for the six-cylinder, diesel-engine, Navy-surplus bus in February and has since spent another $20,000 or so transforming it into a moving memorial.

The collective images of 9/11 victims displayed on the bus convey a sense of community and unity, Gorman said.

“When I look at these people I see you, I see me, I see everybody in the world,” Gorman explained. “I think it brings to mind that life is short. We need to protect our values in America and prevent this from happening again.”

Americans should remember the 9/11 victims each September, Gorman said, because the departed personify the personal sacrifice that pays for our freedoms and way of life.

“We are them and they are us. We are all good, freedom-loving Americans and we need to support each other and be united in our cause as a country,” he concluded.

Bruce Gorman holds a photo of Karleton D. B. Fyfe, one of the 9/11 attack victims killed aboard hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 when it crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, as he’s seated in his bus’s driver’s seat Sept. 2. Photo by Gerry J. GilmoreDownload screen-resolutionDownload high-resolution